© Drfloob.com 2008 
My words are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.
My name is AJ, and I'm a web developer and software engineer out of Southern California.
Written five months ago
tl;dr: everything you experience is your choice because your perceptions are entirely your choice. My job is not what it was made out to be, and I struggled with that to an unhealthy end. I'm learning to accept the situation, and leave work a happier, healthier guy.
I was hired to develop software. I am now paid to maintain someone else's badly-written code. This change in responsibility was unstated, and implicitly acknowledged from day one by everyone but me.
Realizing that fact consumed and ruined months of my life. I fought every day to bring sane development practices and cleanup-projects to light, failing to get any accepted. I saw but didn't understand the culture. The only things important to my employer are bubblegum bandages and wielded fire extinguishers.
It took four months to hit me; I would not be allowed to do what I'm good at. What's worse: my job would consist entirely of tedious, stressful, mostly mindless activities, all pressured into creation by the constant over-promising of our client-interfacing team. In fact, our CEO brings everyone together once a month to congratulate each other on their ability to over-promise and barely deliver. I appreciate the free beer.
Fighting the work had been whittling away my health and happiness, and worse: the health and happiness of my family.
Over the past weeks, I've gradually made the decision to accept my life as it flows. I don't like my job. It's mostly boring, unnecessarily stressful, and above all: as far from my forte as any job can be; but I can still effect good here. I can sometimes do the things that help my company despite the company. I can do what's asked, knowing that my home, my wife, and my future are taken care of in the best way I know how to do so right now.
I may never be able to develop an interesting project on "work time", but I can sneak in sane code to their codebase wherever there's 5 minutes to spare. I plan to ask if some of the nondescript advancements I've made at work can be Open Sourced, and I hold strong hope for positive responses.
Also, I realize that things will simply take as long as they take. My ability to improve code before it's necessary to do so has been handcuffed. I am a reactive cog by definition, and will churn out what needs to be churned out at whatever speed I'm capable of. There's no point in stressing over deadlines anymore, regardless of what was promised.
* * *
I remember this well since it had such an impression on me. I was in Australia in 2002, and I heard this phrase:
"Work to live. Don't live to work."
I'm learning to work to live. Until my work and my passions coincide some day, my work serves to support my life, not to define it. Tonight, I sign off to rest and enjoy my family. I hope you will too.